This was my biggest beef with the Patriot Act actually. If you give the executive branch the power of warrantless surveillance, you are handing someone with immense power a tool no one should have. The patriot act set a horrific precedent. As for Obama's continued use and expansion of it, we'll that is not the person I voted for. I voted on a number of issues for Obama, but this is one action I can't support. He made a terrible precedent set by Bush even worse, and set up an opportunity down the line for someone like Nixon, or even a genuine psychopath like J. Edgar Hoover will have "standard executive practice" as an explanation for their actions.

"Still, the Postmakes it clear the whole effort is far from worthless, detailing how the NSA interceptions helped officials gather some very important bits of intelligence, many of which the paper doesn't disclose."

Fancy that. When you're incarcerated, they know where you are at all times, when you eat, when you sh*t, when you sleep and can track everybody that visits you, everything you read and everything you do. The only difference is, out here, they can use that information to sell you stuff and put you on a sh*list, too. The fact that the "freest nation in the world" has a digital fishing net AND a sh*tlist is an embarrassment.

bunner:"Still, the Postmakes it clear the whole effort is far from worthless, detailing how the NSA interceptions helped officials gather some very important bits of intelligence, many of which the paper doesn't disclose."

Fancy that. When you're incarcerated, they know where you are at all times, when you eat, when you sh*t, when you sleep and can track everybody that visits you, everything you read and everything you do. The only difference is, out here, they can use that information to sell you stuff and put you on a sh*list, too. The fact that the "freest nation in the world" has a digital fishing net AND a sh*tlist is an embarrassment.

Porous Horace:^ I don't know what that means but ... well, it was nice knowing y'all, I don't think I can get to fark from gitmo.

It's a reference to Blue Thunder, a 1983 technothriller movie that depicted a military attempt to misuse what were ostensibly civilian law enforcement assets.

Recent disclosures, separated from Hollywood by thirty years, suggest that the situation is actually the reverse from that in the movie: Under parallel construction, military/intelligence community assets surreptitiously pass information to civilian law enforcement in order to circumvent the exclusionary rule, and depending on which crimes the IC chooses to pass on to LEOs, could neuter the Fourth.

On the one hand, it looks like the IC thinks drug runners are worth breaking the Fourth. On the other hand, the dead of the Boston Bombing (in which all surveillance systems disclosed by Snowden were presumably operational, with a double-obvious-alarm-bell from the Russians screaming at us to investigate the perps before they perped) suggest that the level of criminal activity at which the IC is willing to risk blowing its cover is far higher than most people want to contemplate. I don't know how to resolve that apparent contradiction. Maybe they throw the DEA a bone every few months in order to keep the money flowing. Meh.

Back to the snazzy helicopter from Blue Thunder, the message of the movie is as appropriate to 2014 as it was to 1983: some capabilities are too powerful with which to entrust any organization, however well-intentioned they may seem, or may actually be, at the time we give them those capabilities.

Porous Horace:Another question I have is that with all this surveillance why when we read about terrorists or pedophiles being caught why is it usually through a tip or some non-surveillance method? Where is the parade of apprehended criminals?

Additionally if the initial source is legal, the law enforcement and prosecution could simply leave the initial stage out and simply trot out the later. It wouldn't be fruit of the poisonous tree but would allow them to hide a method. I could be wrong here or it might require a judge to help with the operation.

Smackledorfer:Additionally if the initial source is legal, the law enforcement and prosecution could simply leave the initial stage out and simply trot out the later. It wouldn't be fruit of the poisonous tree but would allow them to hide a method. I could be wrong here or it might require a judge to help with the operation.

That's the "parallel construction" that Twilight Farkle was talking about in the post immediately before yours. The judge never knows of it, because law enforcement purposefully withholds the true source of their information from the court and comes up with a plausible way of gaining the information "on their own" that no one will question.

One thing I've learned while handling patient information and records is that your average american doesn't give half a piss about his/her privacy, and in fact will complain strenuously if there's the slightest inconvenience. (Yes, ma'am, I really do need the last name. No, I will not list off every Mary in the hospital so you can guess which one is yours.)

Seems to me that most of the NSA reaction is simply because people were told to be outraged by the TV.

dookdookdook:Meh. I don't generally subscribe to the "if you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about" view, but I'm 1000% more pissed about what info Facebook and Apple and Google gather on me than what info might be stored about me in some tiny corner of a galactically huge NSA database that no human being will ever look at.

Yeah, getting unjustly thrown in jail for terrorism would be worse than Facebook suddenly deciding to use my picture in an ad for fetish porn, but factor in the relative odds of each of those things actually happening and the second becomes a much larger real threat.

You suck at judging relative risk.

The consequences of the first, while being possibly more rare, are much, much greater than the consequences of the second.

Also, the problem is that if we allow this to stand, it opens up all sorts of very nasty possibilities. When a bureaucratic arm of the government has pretty much unfettered access to all communications, it can influence the other arms of the government, and even elections. Obviously, not a good thing.

bencoon:Seems to me that most of the NSA reaction is simply because people were told to be outraged by the TV.

Google "ditty bopper". I used to be one. Which means that I spent roughly 8 hours a day directly feeding the NSA with intelligence back in the 1980's.

I'm outraged because it's farkin' *WRONG*. Back when I was "in the business", collecting on a 'United States Person' without a FISA warrant was very bad juju. It was impressed upon us that if we accidentally copied a United States Person that we were to immediately stop upon recognizing that fact and to destroy everything we had copied.

Of course, that was after the enactment of the Foreign Intelligence Services Act in 1977, and it's subsequent re-interpretation post 9/11, a "Golden Age" when the rules really mattered, and they were followed.

Twilight Farkle:Back to the snazzy helicopter from Blue Thunder, the message of the movie is as appropriate to 2014 as it was to 1983: some capabilities are too powerful with which to entrust any organization, however well-intentioned they may seem, or may actually be, at the time we give them those capabilities.

dittybopper:Also, the problem is that if we allow this to stand, it opens up all sorts of very nasty possibilities. When a bureaucratic arm of the government has pretty much unfettered access to all communications, it can influence the other arms of the government, and even elections. Obviously, not a good thing.

Why would the government influence elections. They already have people for that.

dittybopper:dookdookdook: Meh. I don't generally subscribe to the "if you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about" view, but I'm 1000% more pissed about what info Facebook and Apple and Google gather on me than what info might be stored about me in some tiny corner of a galactically huge NSA database that no human being will ever look at.

Yeah, getting unjustly thrown in jail for terrorism would be worse than Facebook suddenly deciding to use my picture in an ad for fetish porn, but factor in the relative odds of each of those things actually happening and the second becomes a much larger real threat.

You suck at judging relative risk.

The consequences of the first, while being possibly more rare, are much, much greater than the consequences of the second.

Also, the problem is that if we allow this to stand, it opens up all sorts of very nasty possibilities. When a bureaucratic arm of the government has pretty much unfettered access to all communications, it can influence the other arms of the government, and even elections. Obviously, not a good thing.

Risk involves both consequences and odds. Since you dismiss the latter I would say you are the one who sucks at judging it.

Furthermore there is the potential gain. I personally see little in the nsa, but it is certainly more than facebook.

Geoff Peterson:dittybopper: Also, the problem is that if we allow this to stand, it opens up all sorts of very nasty possibilities. When a bureaucratic arm of the government has pretty much unfettered access to all communications, it can influence the other arms of the government, and even elections. Obviously, not a good thing.

Why would the government influence elections. They already have people for that.

mr0x:Porous Horace: If I'm not doing anything wrong why do you have to look?

It is valuable for LEO in the future (they'd like to be reassured that you are a harmless little twat who doesn't have a single connection to cause any trouble).

And, you are a tax payer. When new forms of taxes, fines or fees are introduced, it will be a good idea to get a handle of where the resistance will come from.

Not you, of course, you don't do anything wrong and would never do anything to oppose anyone so you're a nice harmless little boy.Don't worry, you're filed under "harmless" and "non-threat" that wouldn't do anything "wrong"

dittybopper:Geoff Peterson: dittybopper: Also, the problem is that if we allow this to stand, it opens up all sorts of very nasty possibilities. When a bureaucratic arm of the government has pretty much unfettered access to all communications, it can influence the other arms of the government, and even elections. Obviously, not a good thing.

Why would the government influence elections. They already have people for that.

dbrunker:Geoff Peterson: you know that IRS shiat is just manufactured outrage, don't you?

[img.fark.net image 600x394]You're free to believe what you want, but I've been scammed by this president too many times to believe it.

LMAO. I'm sure they got rid of the emails intentionally. Who farkin cares? If you think those "non-profit" tea bag groups weren't political, I got a bridge to sell you. If you also think that liberal groups weren't getting the same shiat, I got some oceanfront property in AZ to sell you as well. fark your derp.